The campaign highlights the recent iOS clipboard snooping scandal.
What you need to know
- President Trump has launched a scathing new ad campaign against TikTok.
- It says that TikTok has “been caught red handed” monitoring iOS clipboards.
- The U.S. has repeatedly raised concerns about TikTok’s ties to China, and has previously floated the idea of a ban.
A new ad campaign from President Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on TikTok, and calls for Americans to sign a petition to ban the app.
Over on Facebook, political adverts ‘Paid for by Trump Make America Great Again Committee’ and state:
TikTok has been caught red handed by monitoring what is on your phone’s clipboard.
Sign the petition now to BAN TikTok.
Trump now running anti-TikTok Facebook/Instagram ads accusing the company of spying on users pic.twitter.com/dfHuSVpciL
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) July 17, 2020
The advert does not mention that TikTok is one of may iOS apps caught clipboard snooping, or that TikTok has since fixed the issue. The campaign follows comments from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, stating that the U.S. was considering banning the video platform over fears about privacy and the app’s ties to China. From that report:
In a Fox News interview, Pompeo was asked if the U.S. should be considering banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps, to which he replied:
“We are taking this very seriously. We are certainly looking at it.”
“We have worked on this very issue for a long time.”
Secretary Pompeo noted America’s response to the issue of Huawei 5G hardware, and said that “with respect to Chinese apps on peoples’ cellphones, the United States will get this one right too.”
As Bloomberg notes:
The ads were paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee and primarily target users aged 18 to 64, with the largest percentage of views seemingly coming from election battleground states such as Texas and Florida, according to Facebook’s ad library.
Sneakily, it seems that the ad campaign is less of a petition, and more of a mailing list sign-up trawl. When users click to sign the “petition” they are simply taken to a survey where they are asked the question and told to add their info so they can be put on a mailing list.
Trump’s ads encourage users to “sign a petition to BAN TikTok.” The “petition” just links to a “survey” where you input info to be added to his mailing list. These ads are basically stoking anti-TikTok/China sentiment and misleading users to boost Trump’s mailing list pic.twitter.com/FiY0dqr5YS
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) July 17, 2020
